The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [225]
"But, Helen," I remonstrated, "when Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden, He condemned them to labor for their own bread."
"Don’t you think that’s a terribly hard religion? I know it comes from that, but Papa said none of our family were Puritans like that, that the Puritans were hateful people, and even the Dutch couldn’t stand them, and so that’s why they had to go to the New World, not because they were persecuted, but because they were hateful. And I don’t think it’s fair that they should come to New England and that our people should come to Virginia, an utterly different sort of place, and that in the end, they should put their hatefulness and hard religion over on the rest of us, after all! And you know what? It was those very people that started the slave trade, just to get rich. They treated those slaves much more horribly on those ships than ever Papa or Mr. Harris would treat even a dog, even a rat! Papa said they used to have more slaves in Newport, Rhode Island, than anywhere else in the United States, until the Irishmen came in, and it was cheaper to pay the poor benighted Irishmen, who don’t know any better because of their religion, nothing and get rid of having to care for your slaves as a proper master does!"
"Helen ..." But I paused, wanting to be careful of what I said. I dared not openly argue with her.
"So I can’t go to one of those men who lives like that, with a wife and seventeen children. I don’t want to be the first wife, who dies, and I don’t want to be the second wife, who raises the first wife’s brats, and I don’t want my husband to be talking to me about my duty all the time! Isn’t it better to have two or three children, like Bella and Minna and me, and teach us to sing and play the piano and sew and draw and write a fine hand and even make a pudding if we have to—but my goodness, what if I had to slaughter a hog and watch the blood run out, and chop the head off a chicken?"
I almost admitted that I, too, had found these activities distasteful and that I had avoided them whenever I could, so that my niece, Annie, had been forced to take my place. But I hadn’t minded hunting, and dressing game, in K.T. I said, "When you are married, you’ll find yourself doing what you have to do and not minding it so much. You’ll love your husband, and you’ll love your children even more."
"But I was not reared to work every day, all day, and to have my looks go by the time I’m twenty-five, and if I have to live that way, I will certainly die first!" She said it petulantly, almost as a childish threat, but in fact, it was probably true. I said, "Surely your papa will find you a husband to your taste."
"Where? You saw the gallery last night. And if I were to go off, like Bella or Minna, I would have to leave Papa all alone. Don’t you love Papa? He’s so lively and dear! How could I leave him and go to Georgia or South Carolina or somewhere?" She lowered her voice. "You know, Papa’s always going on about land being good and money being evil, but if we were rich in money rather than in land, Papa and I could be together anywhere we chose. I think about this day and night, but I don’t see a solution! I suppose it’s better not to think about it at all, but just to let yourself be led about by the nose and to accept what happens to you, but my goodness, that seems an awfully spineless way to live!"
I finally laughed.
"Well, it is," said Helen.
There was a knock on the door, and I opened it. Outside it stood Lorna, with two trays. She said, "Well, at leas’ I done foun’ Missy. Two seconds later, and I woulda got worried. My land, you should see de dining room and de parlor. It look like dey had a war down dere! An’ de girl and I, we got to clean dat up before Massa Richard come down!"
I saw that she was annoyed with us for wasting her time.